Ford has announced that they are started the process of rolling out Android Auto and Apple CarPlay to all 2016-model year vehicles for the first time via a wireless software update. This new upgrade will be exclusively available for 800,000 Ford vehicles in total, that is, giving a big number of car owners the chance to get big infotainment upgrades without having to purchase a latest model car. This is actually the first time that Ford has done an update to SYNC over Wi-Fi, even though they’ve been pushing updates since 2009, for SYNC. What that means for Wi-Fi-enabled cars is that if you have automatic updates installed, your car will automatically download and install the update for you and there’s nothing that needs to be done.

Sync 3-equipped 2016 vehicles

Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are OS from Apple and Google that enable drivers to connect their smartphones to their vehicles’ dashboard. When they get in and be able to use things like Google Maps (or Apple Maps) for navigation, also listen to their favorite music, audiobooks, podcasts and much more.

With Android Auto, you’re able to use your car’s steering wheel controls to interact with the Android Auto. Which includes adjusting the volume, skipping songs and even using the voice command button for issuing commands to Google. And remember that with Google Android Auto, you do need to long-press the voice button to use it within Android Auto.

This new update comes after car manufacturer Volvo and Audi announced that they’ll be using Android as the main OS for their upcoming vehicles. Although this news means that now Ford offers Android Auto as an option in more of its cars, it does not seem to want to substitute SYNC 3 with the Android completely — after all, it just hired BlackBerry 400 engineers to work on its connected car initiative.